The Story Continued
by Gold Stitch
Summary: The building has collapsed on Nathaniel, but in one last attempt to save him, as he is being drawn out of his body Bartimaeus casts all of his energy into a bubble sheild. The story is not yet finished, my friends...
1. A beginning from an end

**MUAHAHAHAHA!**

**disclaimer: with all my mighty imagined powers of...magical...ness, I could not hope to own these characters. A genius Stroud may be, but he STILL TRIED TO KILL NAT! So this is my rebuttal. Hope you like it!**

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His eyelids fluttered slowly open, only to be met with a darkness equal to that of his previous unconscious state. He attempted to raise a hand to his face, but his muscles would not obey his brain, opting to pin his limbs to his body with no thought to freedom of movement. Every twitch brought pain, and suddenly his head was pounding, as though there were thousands of demons trying to escape from within his skull. He moaned, and his voice was pitifully weak to his ears, bouncing back to him off of an unseen surface. Lying on his back, he had no idea where he was, what was going on, or what had happened over the past few days. He couldn't move, and when he tried to call out for help, all that came out was a raspy moan. He recognized a feeling of hunger, and his mouth was so dry it felt as though it were made of delicate parchment. A scraping sound above him caught his attention, and a single disjointed thought skittered through his mind.

_What could that be…?_

* * *

"Kitty! The imps have found something!"

Kitty looked up from her scrying glass, eyes dull. Her own imp had been searching for three days now, and had found absolutely nothing, along with about fifty other demons of different classifications. There was a group of twelve imps that clustered together, using their combined magic to throw up a shield to protect themselves from the burning aura of the iron from the collapsed building. All of them were searching for one thing: A certain magician that had been caught inside when the place imploded. None of the demons wanted to be there, and all had the same reasons. One, they were looking for a magician. Two, the pile of debris was full of iron, and three, labour of any kind put them in a bad mood.

Kitty had promised herself not to give up, not until they found something, even if it was a corpse. She was quickly losing hope though, and her tired mind could only just believe that this was anything but another false alarm. She dragged herself out of one of the many chairs set up around the site, and plodded over to the woman who had called to her previously. She took a deep breath, ready to bear whatever it was that she had to tell her.

"What have they found, Piper?"

"I don't know, but you'd better take a look. They say it's important-"

Kitty was already stumbling over to the group of imps, her exhausted limbs ready to give in and let her tumble to the ground. When she reached them, they all had looks of excitement on their faces, one that said they believed their job was almost done.

"Alright, what did you find?" Kitty demanded, face flushed from the walk.

"We think we found him, miss!" Jabbered a little blue imp, rocking back and forth happily on his squat legs.

"We heard a small moaning noise, and thought we'd check it out," put in a spiny yellow imp that looked like a cross between a porcupine and a toad. "We dug down, but we were thrown back when we hit some kind of magical barrier. We can't see inside, but the moaning's gotten louder."

"Where did you see this?" Kitty almost shrieked. If he was there, if he was alive, if there was even the smallest possibility that she could see him again, then they had to look. They would find him. She squared her shoulders and waited for an answer.

"It was over here, lady!" Piped a tiny green demon. It nudged the others to follow it, and together they shuffled to where, supposedly, this magical barrier lay. Kitty followed eagerly. Her search might be at an end.

* * *

A hesitant tapping noise echoed from above his head, and muffled voices reached his ears. He cracked open his right eye, staring up blearily into a light that singed his retina, and saw a fuzzy outline of a face. He felt that somehow he should be relieved, this shape could be his rescuer. By now he had figured out that he was trapped under a large amount of heavy materials, mainly something that looked to be glass, overlain with the darker shapes of something more opaque, but he seemed to be lying in a pocket of air that had not been touched by the falling…whatever it was, and was largely unhurt, at least compared to how he should be. His main problem was an aching wound in his side, and the fact that he had no idea what had happened to him. He wasn't highly affected by claustrophobia, so the fact that he was stuck in a small space did not bother him too much. He only wished he could remember, something, anything! He didn't even recall his name. Blurry images of an angry demon flashed through his mind, accompanied by trailing thoughts of ambition and low respect for the government. He couldn't understand how these came together to put him in the mess he was in, but maybe this appearance of help could somehow repair his mind.

Barely recognizing the idea, he tried to wave a hand at the figure, to show he was alive, awake, something to get him out of there. His muscles still did not want to work, so he uttered a small howl of frustration instead. The figure moved. It had worked. Suddenly, a cloud of smoke began to form inside his prison. He gawked at it, until a strangely familiar voice started to speak…

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A/N: I'm new here...~looks around~ so plz don't eat me for being stupid! ~hides in a shoe~

oh, and tell me what you think while I work on the next chapter. :)


	2. Escape

**Oh, I've invented some new magical procedures...such as afrits ripping up shields, the shield that heals (will be explained later)communicating via magical cloud... :)**

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"Nathaniel! Can you hear me?"

Looking into the plume of purple smoke, he noticed that a face had begun to form. It quickly re-arranged itself to resemble female features, consisting of sharp brown eyes, high cheekbones and a wrinkled complexion. A lock of grey hair fell across the woman's forehead, and she blew it off, staring intently at him. He opened his mouth, but no sound escaped his lips. All he wanted was to get out of this place, but now that help had arrived, he couldn't manage to reply to her simple question. He tried to nod, but it hurt too much, as though he had been dropped off of the top of a three hundred story building and survived, only to enter a twisted realm of pain. A tear slid down his cheek, and that seemed to have a great effect on the face in the smoke. She drew back, gasping at the expression of agony that contorted his features. She was clearly distressed.

"Oh, god, Nathaniel! We have to get you out of there!"

_No kidding…_he thought, trying to focus on something other than the pain. His name. What had she called him? Nathaniel, that was it. He contemplated that. He knew who he was now, and apparently this strange woman did too, suggesting a previous relationship. Who had she been to him? His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden loud bang echoing around his head. He looked up, and the face was gone. He saw the shadow above twisting and shaking, and he was immensely confused until he felt a shock ripple through his body. It felt like he had been thrown into a lightning storm, but then…something changed. He was no longer in pain, not even from his old wounds. He would have been happy had his brain not been too rattled from the violent thrashing, but when it was over and he again laid still, he could only gasp for breath. He looked again at the shadow, and it was splayed across the top of his little bubble, unmoving. His brain took over, and before he could stop them, the words came out.

"Hey, are you okay? What happened?" He sat up then, baffled. He had spoken. With a jolt, he stared at his fingers, which he waved in front of his face, just to be sure. He had _moved._ His body was healed then, but what of his mind? He tried to remember something from his past. Who the woman was, perhaps. How he had gotten here. Why it did not overly disturb him that a disembodied head had appeared before him. All of these things were worth considering, but before he could give thought to anything he had to know if the shadow was okay. He tapped on the top of his bubble, and the figure twitched. Alive then. A second shadow walked up behind the first one, and this one had horns. Big horns. It gently lifted the figure up in its arms, and placed it somewhere off to the side. It then proceeded to lean down towards him, and reached out its hands…

* * *

Kitty was heartbroken at the sight of her friend's face when he tried to talk to her. Without thinking, she placed her hands on the outside of his magical shield, and was repulsed violently, her body flying into a whirlwind of frenzied movement. She knew immediately that she had made a stupid mistake, and now she would probably pay for it. Her new aura was wreaking havoc with all the magical instruments, and this one was no different. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Nathaniel undergoing a similar experience, hitting his head off of the walls of the shield as his body flailed in the air.

Giving one last spasm, Kitty fell to the ground. Unhurt. She moved a hand…no pain. A foot…nothing. Lifting her head, she realized just how exhausted she was, and her body pulled her into unconsciousness before she had a chance to object.

* * *

Jeirnolc the afrit saw all of this from his post, and decided he had better do something. He was a rather friendly spirit, and had grown to like Miss Jones as she was the only one who had shown any well meaning for the demons. He strode over, fiery hooves melting the glass he stepped on, and saw Kitty lying on top of a thin sheet of glass that was suspended over a particularly large pit. Grimacing, he picked her up, and laid her down on a thicker bed of glass and iron. Uncomfortable as it may be, it was better than falling into the hole where none of the demons would be able to reach her.

It was then that Jiernolc discovered Nathaniel. He was sitting up in his bubble…strange, he should have been unconscious from the magical shock. The magician just looked up at him, obviously frightened, and the afrit sighed. This was going to be a battle of will.

Where the initial shield had been as weak as the demon who cast it, when Miss Jones touched it her enormous aura had caused it to become extremely strong. Jiernolc studied it with his eyes, searching the planes for a weakness of any kind. When he found one, he reached his hands out towards it, and filtered a tiny stream of magic into it to make it bigger. When he was satisfied with the size of his hole, he dug his claws in and began to pull it open. The shield was difficult to work against, with its magical boost he had to try twice as hard not to get shocked. Plus, he doubted it would bode well for the kid inside if the bubble decided to toss him around again. Finally, with a nice _rip_, the shield gave way, and there was now a gaping hole in the top. He extended his hands to the magician.

"Grab my hands, kid. I need to get you out of here without touching the sides, so be careful. You don't want to get shocked again."

* * *

Hesitantly, Nathaniel took hold of the demon's clawed fingers, letting himself be lifted out of the hole. When he was out, standing on a pile of rubble, he then noticed the figure that had been on top of his hole before the shock. On closer inspection, the figure turned out to be the face in the smoke, but now she had a body. Only…he didn't know how he knew it was the same person. This girl looked much younger, only twenty years old or so. Her face was largely wrinkle-free, and her hair was black-brown. It was also longer than before, stretching down her back. She was pretty, he thought distractedly. Still very familiar. He felt he owed her something, but he didn't know what. The demon seemed to be looking at her too.

"You know, kid," it muttered. "You should thank her for your being out of that hole. She was the one who organized the search. Everyone else had given up on you, claiming that there was no way you could have survived, and I believed that myself until I saw the shield. Obviously that Bartimaeus guy wanted you alive, because he cast it for you when he could barely survive on his own in this realm. You have to thank him too, when you get the chance. I guess we should probably get her off of this pile of junk now, and get the demons dismissed. You're coming with me, in case you fall into another pit."

A little confused by the creature's ranting, he decided it would probably be best to follow it. After all, it _had _just rescued him. Trudging along behind and dodging shards of glass, he thought about what he had just learned. His name was Nathaniel. This girl had organized a search party of…_had he heard it right?_ demons, so that they could look for him when he was supposedly dead, and someone, _or something, _named Bartimaeus, had cast a shield that had saved him. From what, he had no idea. He needed some answers.

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**Yet again, I need some feedback :P**

**Don't hold back people!**

**But srsly, if you have anything bad to say just go up to your bathroom and scream it into your toilet. Cuz that's where it belongs. XD**


	3. Fresh Start

Kitty awoke in a strange bed. None of the furnishings were something she recognized from her own bedroom. Sitting up, she felt a little dizzy, and coloured splotches danced before her eyes, obscuring her vision. Blinking furiously, she swung her legs down to dangle at the side of the bed while she looked around. This was not somewhere she had ever been, nor somewhere she would ever have expected to be. When she felt she could stand without wobbling, she hopped off the bed and half-stumbled to the door. _Too soon then. Ah well. _Reaching for the doorknob, she wondered _where_ exactly she could be. She remembered falling asleep on the pile of glass, and no-one knew where her house was, because she preferred not to reveal that kind of thing to a bunch of magicians, the people who she used to hate and distrust the most. A few of those feelings still resided in a dusty little corner of her brain, and she was reluctant to let go of them. So then, who could have offered her a place to stay? A thought struck her. Where was Nathaniel? Was he in the same house? Excitedly, she grasped the doorknob and yanked it open, running out into the hallway. The beige carpeting was soft on her bare feet, and the cheery yellow-orange walls welcomed her to explore the sunlit house. She wandered down the hall, until she came to a flight of stairs. Hearing noises somewhere below her, she raced down them, two at a time, almost tumbling face-first over the curved banister more than once. Reaching the bottom, she located the source of the sounds: two figures sitting at a kitchen table, both of whom she recognized.

"Piper! Mr. Button! Where are we?" gasping, she forced herself to slow down and walk over to the table, where she took a seat in between the two people.

Laughing, Piper gestured at the room. "We're in my kitchen, Kitty. That was quite a nap you just took. Oh, look at you! You're so beautiful!"

Confused by this last remark, Kitty stared at her friend while her mouth flapped. Beautiful? Why would she say that?

"Um, do you have a washroom I can use?"

"Of course! Just down the hall and to the left, right next to that fake tree. My cat loves to eat the leaves of the real ones, so I had to get a plastic one to be safe. What a shame."

Leaving behind the rambling Piper, Kitty headed for the washroom, and a mirror.

Nathaniel stretched his limbs for the first time in days, revelling in the sensation of simple movement. His side no longer hurt, and he felt great. A lot of his questions were still unanswered, and his memory needed a little help. He'd been told that the only way to do that was to visit a hypnotist, as his specific case of amnesia was magically induced. A lady named Piper had gotten him an appointment for that morning, saying that there were a lot of things to clear up and they needed his help. He was glad to be getting his memories back as soon as possible. He didn't want to go on with a big hole where his early life should have been. Lying in one of the spare bedrooms of Piper's house, he thought back to his first minutes out of the hole. The girl, he still didn't know who she was! That frustrated him more than anything, because she seemed to be an important link to his past. After washing up in the brightly lit washroom last night, he had gotten a good look at his face. He was handsome, he supposed. He wasn't _ugly_, but he wasn't drop-dead gorgeous either. He liked that. He didn't want to have extremely-anything looks. He wanted to be him, but more importantly, he wanted to know who _he _was. Twisting his gaze to the clock by the bed, he noticed that he had half an hour until his appointment. Groaning, he slid out of bed, and shuffled out the door. Food was what he needed now.

Kitty almost screeched at the sight of her reflection. She was young again! Her skin was smooth, and it felt strangely soft. Her hair had turned brown again, and it had grown out to the length it had been when she had left the resistance. She _was_ beautiful. All of her scars were gone. Her skin looked perfectly airbrushed. Her eyes were bright and free of bags. Her hair was shiny and strong. She looked healthy and fit, and she felt it too. This was great, but it was also strange. How could she have regained her youthful looks in such a short period of time?

Suddenly, she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She looked towards the open washroom door, puzzled. Piper and Mr. Button were still in the kitchen…

Nathaniel!

Nathaniel made his way to the foot of the stairs and turned, walking towards the kitchen. When he walked past the washroom, he was caught and pushed up against the wall, held by someone who's face he couldn't see. A muffled voice spoke into his shoulder.

"Oh my god, you're okay! Nathaniel, we all thought you were dead, and I wouldn't believe it, so I made them search, and we found you! Then, the shock, and I just woke up and now…I'm not old! What's going on?"

Trying to pull free from the girl's embrace, he gave up and patted her on the back. "If you would let go of me," he said, his voice constricted from lack of air, "I could tell you."

The girl released him, but stood with her hands on his shoulders, staring at him as though trying to assure herself that he was real. She waited patiently for an answer. He cleared his throat…

"Well, you see, the truth is…I don't know. I can't remember anything. All I know is my name, and that's only because you told me. If I could only get to my hypnotist's appointment sooner I could tell you but…" He trailed off, searching her eyes.

"You…you don't remember? Anything?" Her face wore an expression of confusion and hurt.

"No, I'm sorry. But, you could tell me your name, if that helps…"

"Kitty. It's Kitty. Oh, Nathaniel!" She was strangling him again, hugging him so tight that he couldn't move. He wriggled out of her grasp, and moved into the kitchen with her following behind. When he saw Piper standing, car keys in hand, his eyes lit up. He was going to get his memories back.

Kitty watched Piper lead Nathaniel out the front door. She was in shock. He didn't remember her. But he would, and when he came back, everything would be better. She knew it. He wouldn't just forget everything and move on with his life. He couldn't. Could he?

Nathaniel watched for the house out of the passenger side window. He had his memories back, and now there was something he was determined to do. He only wished they could hurry up and get back to Piper's home, before his resolve faltered. He had to do this. He'd been waiting for two whole years…

Kitty sat on the couch, stroking Piper's cat, Shiku. _What a weird name for a cat, she observed. He was all white, and fluffy, and he shed fur like it was snowing. He was purring in her lap, and his warmth calmed her. She waited anxiously for Nathaniel's return, chewing her lip and wondering if the hypnotism had worked. At that moment, the front door rattled on its hinges, and swung open. Piper stood, purse in hand, and there was Nathaniel, waiting behind her, a distracted look on his face. He spoke into her ear, and she nodded, bustling off into some corridor of her large, yet cozy, house. Mr. Button had gone home some time before, so now Kitty and Nathaniel were alone in the living room. She stood, and he drew closer to her. _

"_Did it work?" she asked, waiting for a reply, cursing every moment that he remained silent._

_It seemed to her that multiple emotions were fighting for control of his face: happiness, confusion, doubt, and something else. Fear? Why?_

"_Kitty…" he started, but cut himself off. His eyes flashed, and all at once he had his arms around her, pressing his lips to hers, holding her head close to his so that she could not push him away. She froze, eyes wide, but quickly found herself enjoying the contact, and kissed him back. They stood together, in someone else's house, caught in a moment that was purely theirs. But when they heard footsteps in the hall, Nathaniel stepped back, coughing, and she realized what had just happened. She had kissed a magician. Particularly, the magician she had used to hate most in the world. Where had her feelings for him changed? Piper rounded the corner, striding into the room with an armful of books. Seeing their faces, she stopped, and offered the books to Nathaniel._

"_Here's those books you wanted…" she said, looking from one to the other. Guessing what had happened, she grinned, and started to leave the room. "I'll leave you two alone. Oh, and, Nathaniel…maybe you should wait for…that. You know, he needs a little more time to rest before he'd be able to survive here…"_

"_I know. I'm not summoning him. I'm doing something completely different…"_

_Beckoning to Kitty, he headed for his temporary bedroom. Kitty followed, not knowing what he planned to do, but with the thought in the back of her mind that something new had just begun between them. She smiled. The only question now was: where would it go?_


End file.
